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John Masterson, M.D., examining an injured JP Boyd.

For John Masterson, MD, learning how things worked and putting things back together has always been a passion of his. He knew growing up that he had a knack for fixing things and enjoyed tinkering with cars so much so that when his brother crashed a car, Masterson took the newer engine out of the crashed vehicle, put it in his car over a short break from college and drove it back to school. His love of fixing things and putting things back together continues in his career as an orthopedic surgeon with Sports Orthopedics and Spine in Jackson.

An Army brat, Masterson spent much of his high school career in Augsburg, Germany, at a small Department of Defense high school. In such a small school, Masterson had the opportunity to play nearly every sport offered at the school. Being in Europe, soccer was a major sport so Masterson played for the varsity team, although at the time this was not a varsity in most high schools. When he moved back to the United States, his family landed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for his senior year, and he graduated from Roosevelt High School in San Antonio.

“I decided my junior year of high school that I wanted to go into medicine, just no idea what specialty,” said Masterson, who spent time his senior year volunteering at Brook Army Medical Center. “I enjoyed seeing how things worked and fixing things. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a dentist, and I knew I surely didn’t want to be digging in people’s mouths for a living.”

Masterson remained in Texas and graduated in 1986 from the oldest Catholic University in the southwest, St. Mary’s University, majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry. He received his medical degree in Dallas at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, finishing in 1990. It was during his time at medical school that Masterson realized orthopedics was the specialty for him. “I just gravitated to it. It is such a procedure-oriented specialty where I could use my mechanical skills,” said Masterson, who married his wife, Stephanie, in 1990. “In my final year at med school I did some orthopedic electives and that solidified it for me.”

Masterson used a health professions scholarship from the Army to cover the cost of medical school, so once he graduated, he owed Uncle Sam some time. He went to El Paso to do his transitional internship with the Army. “It was really a smattering of all specialties. In the Army before you could get into orthopedics, you had to be utilized as a General Medical Officer,” said Masterson, who then spent the next two years as a General Medical Officer. One of those years was in Korea and he couldn’t bring his wife. “It was a tough year, especially since our daughter, Meaghan, was born that year. We could talk, and she visited a couple of times. We got through it.”

Masterson entered his orthopedic residency in 1993, at Tripler Army Medical Center, which overlooks Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. While in residency, daughter Meredith and son Trevor were born. Over his four years in residency, Masterson saw a great deal of sports patients due largely in part to the patient population being young, active duty soldiers. “We saw more knee injuries and dislocated shoulders and more typical sports medicine injuries,” said Masterson. “For our trauma training, we worked with the residents at Queens Medical Center as they had more trauma there.

At the completion of his residency, Masterson still owed the army two more years of service so he was sent to Fort Hood Army base outside of Killeen, Texas. With three divisions stationed on the base, the seven orthopedic surgeons at the medical center had plenty of patients to treat. Masterson served as Chief of the Orthopedic Service on the base for one year. “In the Army, you get put in positions with lots of responsibility very quickly,” said Masterson. “At the time I was named chief, I was the senior orthopedic guy. The Army was invaluable to me and gave me a very good learning experience. It helped me to learn management skills and hone my orthopedic skills.”

Since 1999, Masterson has been in Jackson at Sports Orthopedics and Spine. “When it came time to start looking for a clinic to join, I had really looked mostly in Texas, as that was where I was licensed,” said Masterson, who holds a certificate of added qualification in sports medicine. “Dr. Keith Nord was attending an academy meeting and was looking to add to the staff at the clinic. He saw my name and that I was military. He called me and asked me to look at the practice. Stephanie and I came out, and I interviewed. We liked Jackson. I saw there was a lot of potential here. It is a great medical community.”

Today the clinic includes five surgeons, a family practice sports medicine physician and a chiropractor. Masterson sees patients weekly in Jackson and Parsons and every other week in Lexington. Two days a week he does surgical procedures. He serves as the team physician for Freed-Hardeman University and is helping Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic High School’s sports program. “We work well with the coaches helping them to handle and avoid injuries in their athletes, especially stress injuries,” said Masterson. “For those who incur an injury at the game on Friday night, we offer a sports injury clinic on Saturday mornings from eight until ten during football season.”

Masterson is one of several physicians who own Solus Performance Training Center in Jackson. “It was an idea we had talked about for several years,” he said. “There are centers like this in other cities, but nothing quite like it here. With the number of high schools, colleges and minor league teams in the area, we saw a need for a place that could help athletes get the edge in the right way. It is a place where athletes of all ages and teams can have personal training in a small group setting. We are so pleased with the progress athletes are making who use the facility as well as folks who come to us for their daily workout regime. We have been honored to be the training center for such athletes as Casey McGehee, an infielder with the Milwaukee Brewers; Artis Hicks, a guard for the Washington Redskins; Buffalo Bills rookie Michael Jasper; and Allen Ervin, who previously signed with the Detroit Lions.”

The training center also has formed a foundation for fitness and well being and has partnered with the Madison County School Board. “We have pilot programs in several schools, where we send staff members out to work with students two or three times a week after school,” said Masterson. “We also offer summer camps for kids and start training them in core training, strength and agility as early as age eight.” Solus is managed and operated by Nick Stamper, a former Baltimore Raven’s linebacker who attended both UT Martin and Lambuth University.

When not busy with his practice, Masterson enjoys time with his family at their lake house, watching his kids participate in sports and taking their annual family ski trip.

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